1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus for printing a displayed image on a display medium such as a portable display terminal.
2. Description of Related Arts
In recent years, portable display terminals such as an electronic paper device have been prevailing as office devices. Most of portable display terminals have a function of adding an input image handwritten by a user on a display screen, to an original image based on document data or the like received from a personal computer, a server or the like, and displaying an output image including the handwritten input image. Such a function is generally called “handwriting input function.”
As a method for printing a displayed image on an electronic paper device which includes an input image added thereto by means of the handwriting input function, using an image forming apparatus such as an MFP (Multi-Function Peripheral), there are two alternatives. In the first method, as is the case in copying of a paper document, an electronic paper device is set on a platen of a scanner so that the displayed image can be read. In the second method, as is the case in outputting of document data created on a personal computer, document data stored in a electronic paper device is transmitted to an image forming apparatus via a network, and the received data is converted into a printable format. In relation to those methods, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2008-141590 proposes an image forming apparatus which determines the type of a medium (i.e. printing paper or electronic paper device) by checking whether or not a printing document is electrically conductive, and controls various operations such as document transfer operations performed by an ADF (Auto Document Feeder) and document reading operations performed by a scanner on the basis of the determination result.
According to the first printing method, a user just has to perform the same tasks as in the case of usual copying, and hence bearing a reduced burden. However, this method may present a problem of degraded image quality as resolution of an electronic paper device is generally lower than resolution of an image forming apparatus. According to the second printing method, high quality images can be obtained but a user is compelled to perform a special task of manipulating the electronic paper device, file server and the like, thereby bearing an increased burden. Furthermore, in a recent office environment, there are various operational restrictions such as the maximum allowable number of copying or printing that is allocated to each user. For this reason, each user needs to precisely know details of the operational restrictions imposed on himself/herself no matter which of those alternatives is taken, thereby bearing further increased burden after all.
The present invention has been made in view of the aforementioned problems. Accordingly, the present invention is intended to provide an image forming apparatus which can ensure a high-quality printed output of a displayed image on a portable display terminal without increasing a burden on a user.